Vox Populi
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Danielle DeTiberus: In the Middle of Fucking You, I Pause
Not to look down and cup your jaw’s small hinge, not
To lean over, kiss you, grab you by the scruff of your chest
As I throw my hair and tits up to the ceiling and ride. No.
My leg has seized to cramp and you notice my wince, scan
The length of my body in the Sunday morning sun filtering
In on us. A little older now, looser than in our 20s,
Looser even than last year. Months of virus and tear gas
In the streets. Our walks and panicked grocery runs
The only time we left the house. Comfort in the garden,
Pastas in their sauces. You built a bicycle from parts, planted
A pear tree in the yard. When this suffering ends, its branches
Will cover our heads. What we did not say was that then, too,
There will be another kind of suffering. Instead we dug out
The earth, tickled the maze of roots loose with our bare hands.
Watered the little tree too much at first, desperate for a task.
I’d make the coffee and watch you whisper to the butterfly
Bush, the cilantro, the fig, the lime. Twenty years together and yet
You were new to me again. What of fear and how it startles.
What if I lost you? A heartsick of Ifs. So we ate more, fucked
More, counted new gray hairs as proof of our survival.
I lift my right leg slightly and before I can speak, your thumbs
Are gliding up and down my thigh. We have learned where
To touch each other by trial and error. Years of listening
To one another sleep. And suddenly on top of you, I want
To weep. Maybe one day despair will get the better of us,
Maybe one day before the pear has even learned to fruit.
What I mean to say is: just when I thought I’d lost all hope.
Copyright 2022 Danielle DeTiberus
Danielle DeTiberus teaches creative writing in Charleston, and she is the Program Chair, Poetry Society of South Carolina.
Vox Populi 
Oh!♥️
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As good poetry does, this struck. Hard and fast and brought tears from nowhere. It sneaked up and let the “poor me”s loose before I could snap their leashes back on. Sometimes a poem is needed to release the tears.
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